Institute for History Annual Report 2010 - O - Universiteit Leiden

continued existence of countless small farms
during the last two centuries BC (cf. below).
Building on these non-literary data a vigorous
school of ‘optimists’ has argued that the idea of
population decline is a figment of the literary
tradition. The principal weakness of this position
is that it makes it difficult to find a convincing
explanation for the Gracchan land reforms. The
solution proposed by some optimists is that the
rationale of these reforms was purely social rather
than demographic.
The aim of this project is to test the hypothesis
that, contrary to all existing reconstructions, the
second century BC witnessed a rapid expansion
not only of the Roman citizenry but of the Latin
and other Italian allies as well. A major advantage
of this unorthodox approach is that it may provide
us with a new and convincing background to the
Sempronian law of 133 BC. The guiding idea is
that since the obligation to serve in the army
rested only on those owning a certain amount of
land, population growth had the paradoxical effect
of diminishing the number of potential recruits.
Gaius Marius’ decision to abandon the property
requirement for military service, taken in 107 BC,
can be seen as the ultimate solution to this
problem. The textual evidence pertaining to
demographic developments during the second
century BC is surprisingly abundant. Its principal
components are the census figures reported by
Livy and other sources, numerous mobilization
and casualty figures and some valuable surveys of
the number of recruits available in particular
years. The aim is to study these data with the help
Institute for History
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of demographic models, including comparative
evidence concerning plausible rates of population
growth.
The Role of State-Owned Land in the
Roman Economy (This PhD-project was
finalized in 2009)
According to the literary sources the illegal occupation
of large tracts of public land by the rich led
to massive rural impoverishment. Since Tiberius
Gracchus’ proposal concerned the redistribution of
ager publicus, there seems little reason to challenge
this picture. Unfortunately, there are serious
difficulties. Since holdings of public land were not
counted as part of the private property required
for military service, it is not immediately apparent
how the take-over of public land by the wealthy
elite could have helped to create a shortage of
potential recruits. It is true that a very substantial
part of the Italian ager publicus was eventually
turned into the private property of those already
holding the land. This, however, seems to have
happened only after the Gracchi had violently
been removed from the scene.
Starting from the idea of population growth a new
interpretation comes to mind. Is it perhaps the case
that the importance of communal land in early
republican history is linked with low population
densities? And cannot the ultimate privatization of
much of the former ager publicus be seen as a
response to an increase in population (as well as to
the emergence of a more commercialized type of
agricultural production that was itself linked to
population growth and urbanization). In exploring